Rate My Professor Ben Groom

Groom's research focuses on biodiversity and climate change economics, intergenerational equity and social discounting for long-term public projects, environmental valuation, adaptation to climate change, land-use change, deforestation, and the economics of biodiversity. His influential publications include 'Discounting Disentangled: An Expert Survey on the Components of the Long Term Social Discount Rate' (American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2018), 'How Should Benefits and Costs be Discounted in an Intergenerational Context?' (Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 2014, co-authored with Arrow et al.), 'Climate economics support for the UN climate targets' (Nature Climate Change, 2020), 'Determining Benefits and Costs for Future Generations' (Science, 2013), and 'Declining Discount Rates: the long and the short of it' (Environmental and Resource Economics, 2005). He has advised governments of the UK, US, Norway, Netherlands, China, Pakistan, and Bolivia on environmental policy, as well as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, OECD, WWF, UN International Seabed Authority, and UK Office for National Statistics. Groom chairs the scientific committee of the BIOECON network, co-organises its annual conference, and is a member of the HM Treasury Biodiversity Working Group. In 2026, he co-leads the UK Treasury's independent review of the Green Book discount rate. A paper co-authored by Groom received the Frontiers Planet Prize in 2025. His work has shaped social discounting guidance across multiple countries and organizations.